Do we really need another one? Maybe animation will make things better. Sony has announced that they're developing another Starship Troopers sequel, following up two other terrible straight-to-DVD sequels to the 1997 sci-fi military action movie directed by Paul Verhoeven. The new one is titled Starship Troopers: Invasion and will be animated, which isn't the first time in this franchise that has happened - there was as animated series called "Roughnecks" made in 1999 as well. Directing this is Shinji Aramaki, of Appleseed and Appleseed: Ex Machina, as well as a Halo Legends segment previously. This actually sounds awesome.

I'm admittedly a huge fan of the original Starship Troopers, although I stayed far away from the sequels, knowing they were terrible. But something about this new animated one has caught my attention. There's a production blog on Tumblr updating on the project, which is where that badass concept art piece above as the teaser poster comes from. According to some details on ShockTillYouDrop, Casper Van Dien might be returning to voice Johnny Rico, and Ed Neumeier, screenwriter of all three Starship Troopers movies, is also in the mix as an executive producer. The screenplay for this one is by Flint Dille, who's worked on numerous video games in the story department and cartoons. Here's the synopsis released:

A distant Federation outpost comes under attack by bugs and the team on Fast Attack Ship Alesia is assigned to help evacuate the survivors and bring military intelligence safely back to Earth. Before the attack ship can rendezvous with the starship, Carl Jenkins, now at the ministry of Paranormal Warfare, takes the starship on a clandestine mission and goes missing in the nebula. The battle-hardened troopers are then charged with a rescue mission that may have much more sinister consequences than they ever could have imagined.

That sounds a bit more vague than I was expecting, considering we don't exactly know how Rico fits in or what this clandestine mission is all about, but I'm intrigued. The only other interesting detail comes from their only blog post so far, saying "we really want this installment of the Starship Troopers franchise to be known for its action, grit, and mind-blowing space battles." Okay, they got me, I'm in if they can deliver kick ass space battles and the kind of bug action that the original Verhoeven Troopers is known/loved for. Starship Troopers: Invasion is being animated by Sola Digital Arts, Inc. in Japan aimed for a Summer 2012 release.